Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Why Hillary Clinton Should be Prosecuted for Reckless Abuses of National Security














July 6, 2016






Yesterday FBI Director James Comey described Hillary Clinton’s email communications as Secretary of State as “extremely careless.” His statement undermined the defenses Clinton put forward, stating the FBI found 110 emails on Clinton’s server that were classified at the time they were sent or received; eight contained information classified at the highest level, “top secret,” at the time they were sent. That stands in direct contradiction to Clinton’s repeated insistence she never sent or received any classified emails.

All the elements necessary to prove a felony violation were found by the FBI investigation, specifically of Title 18 Section 793(f) of the federal penal code, a law ensuring proper protection of highly classified information. Director Comey said that Clinton was “extremely careless” and “reckless” in handling such information. Contrary to the implications of the FBI statement, the law does not require showing that Clinton intended to harm the United States, but that she acted with gross negligence.

The recent State Department Inspector General (IG) report was clear that Clinton blithely disregarded safeguards to protect the most highly classified national security information and that she included on her unprotected email server the names of covert CIA officers. The disclosure of such information is a felony under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

While the FBI is giving Clinton a pass for not “intending” to betray state secrets, her staff has said Secretary Clinton stated she used her private email system because she did not want her personal emails to become accessible under FOI laws. This is damning on two counts – that she intended to disregard the protection of security information, and that she had personal business to conceal.

This is not the end of the Clinton email issues. Department of Justice officials filed a motion in federal court on June 29th requesting a 27-month delay in producing correspondence between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s four top aides and officials with the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings, a public relations firm that Bill Clinton helped launch.

Hillary Clinton deleted 30,000 emails claiming they were ‘personal’. This is equal to the volume of her emails designated as department business. If half of an employee’s email volume is for their personal business, they are not using their time for their job.

If Secretary Clinton was conducting personal business for her family Foundation through the Secretary of State’s Office, this is a matter the American public deserves to know about. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton routinely granted lucrative special contracts, weapons deals and government partnerships to Clinton Foundation donors. The Secretary of State’s office should not be a place to conduct private back room business deals.

The blurring of the lines between Clinton family private business and national security matters in the Secretary of State Office underscores evidence on many other fronts that Hillary Clinton is serving the 1%, not we the people.

Hillary Clinton’s failure to protect critical security information is not the only thing in her tenure as Secretary that deserves the term reckless, including her decision to pursue catastrophic regime change in Libya, and to support the overthrow of democratically elected governments in Ukraine and Honduras.






















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